Merkel to Urge Putin to Step Up Pressure on Iran

Meg Clothier, Reuters:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel met President Vladimir Putin on Monday for talks in which she was expected to press him to support European Union and U.S. diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. READ MORE

On her first visit to Moscow since taking over from Putin's close friend Gerhard Schroeder, Merkel met the Russian leader in the Kremlin for talks to discuss Iran, energy ties, the situation in Chechnya and other issues, German officials said.

Though German officials said Iran would be at the forefront of the talks, Merkel initially made only an oblique reference to Tehran's nuclear plans that have sparked Western suspicions that the Islamic state is secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon.

"There are a range of bilateral issues to discuss here ... There are international themes to be discussed, connected to your chairmanship of the G8 and also opinions to be exchanged about conflicts," Merkel told Putin as they met.

Merkel, who just returned from her first official trip to Washington, agreed with U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday that it was time to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its refusal to abandon uranium enrichment technology that could enable it to get atomic weapons, officials said.

"In Washington the hope was expressed that there could be common approach by the EU, USA and Russia," said a German government official in Berlin who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The officials say Russia has also expressed displeasure at Iran's rejection of a proposal to set up a joint venture inside Russia that would enable Tehran to produce nuclear fuel for what it says is an exclusively peaceful atomic energy program.

SANCTIONS

Germany is the world's top exporter of goods to Iran and would have much to lose if Tehran faced sanctions. It exported 4 billion euros of goods to Iran last year.

Russia, which recently took over chairmanship of the G8 group of rich democracies, also has business interests there and fears sending Iran to the Security Council could escalate Tehran's standoff with West into an international crisis.

Among other projects, Moscow is building a $1 billion nuclear power plant at Bushehr in Iran and hopes to build more.

However, Alexander Rahr, an expert on German-Russian relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said he believed Moscow and the EU could work together on Iran.

"The signs are that Russia has no interest in seeing Iran with a nuclear bomb," Rahr said.

An EU diplomat in Berlin said Merkel hoped to get an assurance from Putin that Moscow would not vote against referring Tehran to the Security Council at an emergency meeting of the UN nuclear watchdog expected to take place next month.

"It seems that Putin will agree not to vote no, but will abstain. A yes vote would be better," the diplomat said.

Germany, France and Britain -- the EU3 -- said last week that 2-1/2 years of talks with Iran on its nuclear program had reached a dead end. But one German official said the talks could be revived if Iran re-suspended its nuclear fuel activities and reconsidered its rejection of Russia's proposal.

The chancellor, who grew up in Germany's formerly communist East and speaks fluent Russian, is under pressure from the opposition to confront Putin on reports that the development of democracy and human rights in Russia is slowing down.

(Additional reporting by Lou Charbonneau)